A plan is in the works to exchange 200 acres of FCRA land along Arkansas 22 for more than 500 acres of National Guard land south of Custer Boulevard along what’s known as Donahoe Ridge. About 80 acres of the FCRA’s land is located within Barling city limits.

“Let’s be honest, the National Guard Army is not the best use of land,” Director Bruce Farrar said Tuesday during a Board of Directors meeting.

The 200 acres between Arkansas 22 and Fort Chaffee Maneuver Training Center may be used for a future, multi-million dollar operational readiness training center, Col. Mike Stransky told FCRA leaders at a June meeting.

According to the city, negotiations are in the works for a land exchange with the FCRA to replace the lost 80 acres.

An option the FCRA proposed, according to Barling City Administrator Mike Tanner, gives the city 80 acres, 44 of which is in a flood plain.

“You can’t build on it,” he said.

A second proposal, created by the city, calls for 80 acres contiguous to land earmarked for a new Fort Smith high school. A third option, which has not yet been discussed with the FCRA, would move the military facility back and cede Barling between 10 and 20 acres of highway 22 frontage.

It was decided Tuesday to set up a meeting with the FCRA for further discussion.

“Let’s see if we can’t work out a meeting or work out something,” Mayor Jerry Barling said.

More than a decade ago, Barling and Fort Smith fought for 7,000 acres of land released by the U.S. Army from Fort Chaffee as part of a Base Closing and Realignment downsizing.

In the end, an agreement ceded the lion’s share of the land to Fort Smith, but left Barling with desirable acreage along the corridor that will eventually become Interstate 49 and that highway’s intersection with 22 and 59.

“That is the most prime land of all we’ve got, and they want to take it back,” Director Bill McMahan said. “With all the land they have out here, why do they have to have it here on that good, commercial land on Highway 22?”